From Kabul to Cairo, the Killing and Jailing of Journalists Continues
Journalism is not a crime. This is the rallying cry in demanding the release of four Al-Jazeera journalists imprisoned in Egypt. Three of them - Peter Greste, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed - have just passed their hundredth day of incarceration. The fourth, Abdullah al-Shami, has been in jail for more than six months. They have been charged with "spreading lies harmful to state security and joining a terrorist organization." Of course, the only thing they were doing was their job.
Journalism is not a crime. This is the rallying cry in demanding the release of four Al-Jazeera journalists imprisoned in Egypt. Three of them - Peter Greste, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed - have just passed their hundredth day of incarceration. The fourth, Abdullah al-Shami, has been in jail for more than six months. They have been charged with "spreading lies harmful to state security and joining a terrorist organization." Of course, the only thing they were doing was their job.
Anja Niedringhaus also was doing her job as a photographer for The Associated Press when she was murdered last week in Khost, Afghanistan. She was covering the preparations for Afghanistan's national election, and was sitting in her car with AP reporter Kathy Gannon when an Afghan police officer opened fire, killing Niedringhaus and wounding Gannon.
Niedringhaus' work captured the brutality of war, and the hope of humanity. She began her career as a teenager, photographing the fall of the Berlin Wall in her native Germany. She went on to work for the European Pressphoto Agency, where she covered the war in the Balkans, the aftermath of Sept. 11 in New York City, and then on to the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. In 2002, she moved on to the AP, where she covered Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as major international sporting events like the World Cup and Wimbledon. When scrolling through the images of our times that she left behind, you are struck by the courage, the talent and the ability to capture and transmit an instant in time charged with the full weight of history.
Niedringhaus is one of too many journalists killed while performing a critical public service: journalism.
Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya wrote, in 2003, "Is journalism worth dying for?" She was reporting on the attempted murder of a colleague at the fiercely independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta. She wrote: "If the price of truth is so high, perhaps we should just stop, and find a profession with less risk of 'major unpleasantness.' How much would society, for whose sake we are doing this work, care?" Politkovskaya answered her rhetorical question through action, by continuing to cover power in Russia, especially the presidency of Vladimir Putin. She was murdered three years later, on Oct. 7, 2006. Her killing had the hallmarks of a contract killing, as have the murders of other journalists in Russia.
Neither death nor imprisonment should be the punishment for reporting the news. The Committee to Protect Journalists compiles statistics and organizes campaigns to defend threatened journalists, free those in prison and demand accountability for journalists killed. CPJ provides direct aid for journalists facing imminent threats, including medical and legal help, and relocation. Since 1992, CPJ reports, there have been 1,054 journalists killed worldwide.
This week also marks the anniversary of the violent deaths of two reporters in Iraq, Jose Couso of the Spanish television channel Telecinco, and Taras Protsyuk, a Ukrainian cameraman reporting for Reuters. On April 8, 2003, they were filming the U.S. invasion of Baghdad from their balconies at The Palestine Hotel, well-known to be where the world's press corps was staying. A U.S. Army tank fired a round at the hotel, killing the two journalists and injuring others. When the Spanish prime minister at the time, Jose Maria Aznar, who supported the invasion, next spoke to the Spanish press in Parliament, they laid down their cameras and microphones, and turned their backs on him in protest of their colleague's death. Many then blocked the intersection outside the U.S. Embassy in Madrid, chanting "Murderer! Murderer!" The U.S. military crew of the tank that killed Couso and Protsyuk are known, but the U.S. has not cooperated in Spanish attempts to prosecute them. This week, like every year on the anniversary of Couso's death, his family and supporters protest outside the U.S. embassy.
In 2011, Anja Niedringhaus wrote to The New York Times: "I don't believe conflicts have changed since 9/11 other than to become more frequent and protracted, but the essence of the conflict is the same - two sides fighting for territory, for power, for ideologies. And in the middle is the population who is suffering." Journalists are there to report that suffering. Shooting the messenger is a war crime.
Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Journalism is not a crime. This is the rallying cry in demanding the release of four Al-Jazeera journalists imprisoned in Egypt. Three of them - Peter Greste, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed - have just passed their hundredth day of incarceration. The fourth, Abdullah al-Shami, has been in jail for more than six months. They have been charged with "spreading lies harmful to state security and joining a terrorist organization." Of course, the only thing they were doing was their job.
Anja Niedringhaus also was doing her job as a photographer for The Associated Press when she was murdered last week in Khost, Afghanistan. She was covering the preparations for Afghanistan's national election, and was sitting in her car with AP reporter Kathy Gannon when an Afghan police officer opened fire, killing Niedringhaus and wounding Gannon.
Niedringhaus' work captured the brutality of war, and the hope of humanity. She began her career as a teenager, photographing the fall of the Berlin Wall in her native Germany. She went on to work for the European Pressphoto Agency, where she covered the war in the Balkans, the aftermath of Sept. 11 in New York City, and then on to the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. In 2002, she moved on to the AP, where she covered Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as major international sporting events like the World Cup and Wimbledon. When scrolling through the images of our times that she left behind, you are struck by the courage, the talent and the ability to capture and transmit an instant in time charged with the full weight of history.
Niedringhaus is one of too many journalists killed while performing a critical public service: journalism.
Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya wrote, in 2003, "Is journalism worth dying for?" She was reporting on the attempted murder of a colleague at the fiercely independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta. She wrote: "If the price of truth is so high, perhaps we should just stop, and find a profession with less risk of 'major unpleasantness.' How much would society, for whose sake we are doing this work, care?" Politkovskaya answered her rhetorical question through action, by continuing to cover power in Russia, especially the presidency of Vladimir Putin. She was murdered three years later, on Oct. 7, 2006. Her killing had the hallmarks of a contract killing, as have the murders of other journalists in Russia.
Neither death nor imprisonment should be the punishment for reporting the news. The Committee to Protect Journalists compiles statistics and organizes campaigns to defend threatened journalists, free those in prison and demand accountability for journalists killed. CPJ provides direct aid for journalists facing imminent threats, including medical and legal help, and relocation. Since 1992, CPJ reports, there have been 1,054 journalists killed worldwide.
This week also marks the anniversary of the violent deaths of two reporters in Iraq, Jose Couso of the Spanish television channel Telecinco, and Taras Protsyuk, a Ukrainian cameraman reporting for Reuters. On April 8, 2003, they were filming the U.S. invasion of Baghdad from their balconies at The Palestine Hotel, well-known to be where the world's press corps was staying. A U.S. Army tank fired a round at the hotel, killing the two journalists and injuring others. When the Spanish prime minister at the time, Jose Maria Aznar, who supported the invasion, next spoke to the Spanish press in Parliament, they laid down their cameras and microphones, and turned their backs on him in protest of their colleague's death. Many then blocked the intersection outside the U.S. Embassy in Madrid, chanting "Murderer! Murderer!" The U.S. military crew of the tank that killed Couso and Protsyuk are known, but the U.S. has not cooperated in Spanish attempts to prosecute them. This week, like every year on the anniversary of Couso's death, his family and supporters protest outside the U.S. embassy.
In 2011, Anja Niedringhaus wrote to The New York Times: "I don't believe conflicts have changed since 9/11 other than to become more frequent and protracted, but the essence of the conflict is the same - two sides fighting for territory, for power, for ideologies. And in the middle is the population who is suffering." Journalists are there to report that suffering. Shooting the messenger is a war crime.
Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.
Journalism is not a crime. This is the rallying cry in demanding the release of four Al-Jazeera journalists imprisoned in Egypt. Three of them - Peter Greste, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed - have just passed their hundredth day of incarceration. The fourth, Abdullah al-Shami, has been in jail for more than six months. They have been charged with "spreading lies harmful to state security and joining a terrorist organization." Of course, the only thing they were doing was their job.
Anja Niedringhaus also was doing her job as a photographer for The Associated Press when she was murdered last week in Khost, Afghanistan. She was covering the preparations for Afghanistan's national election, and was sitting in her car with AP reporter Kathy Gannon when an Afghan police officer opened fire, killing Niedringhaus and wounding Gannon.
Niedringhaus' work captured the brutality of war, and the hope of humanity. She began her career as a teenager, photographing the fall of the Berlin Wall in her native Germany. She went on to work for the European Pressphoto Agency, where she covered the war in the Balkans, the aftermath of Sept. 11 in New York City, and then on to the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. In 2002, she moved on to the AP, where she covered Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as major international sporting events like the World Cup and Wimbledon. When scrolling through the images of our times that she left behind, you are struck by the courage, the talent and the ability to capture and transmit an instant in time charged with the full weight of history.
Niedringhaus is one of too many journalists killed while performing a critical public service: journalism.
Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya wrote, in 2003, "Is journalism worth dying for?" She was reporting on the attempted murder of a colleague at the fiercely independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta. She wrote: "If the price of truth is so high, perhaps we should just stop, and find a profession with less risk of 'major unpleasantness.' How much would society, for whose sake we are doing this work, care?" Politkovskaya answered her rhetorical question through action, by continuing to cover power in Russia, especially the presidency of Vladimir Putin. She was murdered three years later, on Oct. 7, 2006. Her killing had the hallmarks of a contract killing, as have the murders of other journalists in Russia.
Neither death nor imprisonment should be the punishment for reporting the news. The Committee to Protect Journalists compiles statistics and organizes campaigns to defend threatened journalists, free those in prison and demand accountability for journalists killed. CPJ provides direct aid for journalists facing imminent threats, including medical and legal help, and relocation. Since 1992, CPJ reports, there have been 1,054 journalists killed worldwide.
This week also marks the anniversary of the violent deaths of two reporters in Iraq, Jose Couso of the Spanish television channel Telecinco, and Taras Protsyuk, a Ukrainian cameraman reporting for Reuters. On April 8, 2003, they were filming the U.S. invasion of Baghdad from their balconies at The Palestine Hotel, well-known to be where the world's press corps was staying. A U.S. Army tank fired a round at the hotel, killing the two journalists and injuring others. When the Spanish prime minister at the time, Jose Maria Aznar, who supported the invasion, next spoke to the Spanish press in Parliament, they laid down their cameras and microphones, and turned their backs on him in protest of their colleague's death. Many then blocked the intersection outside the U.S. Embassy in Madrid, chanting "Murderer! Murderer!" The U.S. military crew of the tank that killed Couso and Protsyuk are known, but the U.S. has not cooperated in Spanish attempts to prosecute them. This week, like every year on the anniversary of Couso's death, his family and supporters protest outside the U.S. embassy.
In 2011, Anja Niedringhaus wrote to The New York Times: "I don't believe conflicts have changed since 9/11 other than to become more frequent and protracted, but the essence of the conflict is the same - two sides fighting for territory, for power, for ideologies. And in the middle is the population who is suffering." Journalists are there to report that suffering. Shooting the messenger is a war crime.
Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.